Here I talk about life and writing and my books, including The Tales from Atlantis book one Digging Up the Past and book two Reaching for Beyond. I give hints about what's to come and excerpts from current works.

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Whew! I feel kind of like Ash over there right now. I’m happy to say I have finally realized why Riley’s been
resisting as I’ve progressed through Reaching for Beyond. What I’m not happy to say is it will push
back the release for a bit while I do rewrites; however, it will be a much
better book for the delay. The good news
is that the work is progressing more rapidly than it has in a while, so it will
be coming up soon.

See the problem is that Riley is a loner, and I’ve been trying
to force her to be with people most of the time, and it’s apparently been
driving her a little batty. I’m looking forward to seeing her individual
approach to more of the events in the book.
The rest of the crew is still around, and are big parts of her life, but
as you know, and as she reminded me, Riley is well able to take care of herself
without being with someone all the time.

Jason and Cam

She and Jason work together, but they work best when they
each pursue their different approaches to each individual case, and then come
together to compare notes and bounce ideas off each other, so I’m going to let
them take their preferred approach, and see if it doesn’t flow better.

The relationship between Riley and Cam will change and
develop in this book, but I have no idea which direction they will take. They haven’t let me know yet what they want
to do, but I’m sure they will.

Other Characters

Some of the other characters from Digging Up the Past will
be in Reaching for Beyond as well, and there will be some new people to meet,
but where they will fit into Riley’s life remains to be seen. She tends to try
to keep people at arm’s length because people around her often die.

I don’t know why I suddenly failed to listen to her about
how she works best, but there it is.
It’s a mistake I will not to make again, but since I tend to try to take
control of situations, I can’t make any promises, so I’m sure Riley and I will
but heads again before the series is over.
I’m sure the payoff for this conflict will be more interesting books for
you, and it will certainly be a wild ride for me, and probably for both of us. Enjoy!

My stomach
churned. The blood and death were bad enough, but the smell of werewolf, and
Lilin combined with the dark energy that I couldn’t identify emanating from the
house concerned me more than the smell alone. The dark energy seemed to seep
through my shields, and the effect it was having on me scared the crap out of
me. I could feel anger rising.

I wished that Sam,
the DUE wizard, or my partner, Jason, who wasn’t in town yet, were here, for
moral support if nothing else, but maybe by the time I talked to them, I could
figure out how to explain it, and even more importantly, maybe I could figure
out why it was making me angry. It wasn’t emotional energy. It was just dark.
Even so, with my training and shields, it shouldn’t have affected me at all,
much less so strongly. The only benefit I could see right now from either my
training or my shields was that I realized what it was that was making me angry. Knowing that helped me know how to push it
back and not take it out on the people around me. Unfortunately, I couldn’t
tell exactly why it was making me
angry, and it didn’t seem to be connected to the Lilin or Werewolf energy. It might not have helped if it was connected
to one of them, but at least I’d have a place to start.

“Are you alright?” One of the uniforms asked
me. He was young, and probably had never been to a scene like this before. He also
looked like he thought I was going to contaminate the crime scene, but I was
willing to bet he still hadn’t been inside, and it would probably be best if he
didn’t go.

“No. Let’s get
this done.” It came out sharper than I intended it, but the anger kept rising,
pushing me to lash out. Knowing what was causing it helped some, but the urge
to punch someone was increasing. When an empath lashes out, our emotions spill
out over everyone. If I wasn’t careful, I could start a brawl at the crime
scene. Not particularly helpful when trying to solve a crime and a good way not
to be invited back.

Monday, April 11, 2016

I am all about creativity.At work there are often restrictions on how far you can take that
creativity, even if you’re in a creative job like mine.I always tell people, “they pay me to write
and take pictures, and it doesn’t get much better than that.”However, when you work in Law Enforcement,
you can only take that creativity so far.Choosing the right word, and taking the best picture you can while
dealing with topics where it is critical that truth and formality is maintained
most of the time can sometimes feel a bit limiting at times when you’re like me
and like to make things up.

This week, on the other hand, I’ve been developing a new
skill that while you are still seeking the truth of your best interpretation,
you still expend more creativity in the creation of what you hope is a good
likeness, composite drawing.You are
working from a description, and possibly pictures of facial features, to help get
an accurate impression of a person’s face.I’ve always enjoyed drawing, but since I’ve never had any classes, it
generally takes me longer than I have time for to get a drawing to a point
where I’m even remotely happy with it.This class cut down on that time considerably while giving me focused skills
for drawing composites.

I also feel like you just can’t have enough skills, and you
should never stop learning, so this class filled both those criteria, and took
me out of my comfort zone it an excellent direction.I am now a composite artist, albeit a new
one, who is still perfecting her skills, but I believe that all forms of
creativity merge, and the more you exercise your creative muscles, the better
honed they become, just like your physical muscles.

I’m hoping this will also speed up my progress on book two
of the Tales from Atlantis.It’s in
revisions, but there’s something, I just can’t put my finger on yet, that I
need to change, and I will not put it out until I figure it out.I want you to have only the best of me and my
work.I will include an excerpt that I’m
good with for a bit of a teaser.

Excerpt: Reaching for Beyond

Even when I pushed
past the emotions permeating the room, the blood and the darkness were still
there. Blood had soaked in to every visible surface in the bedroom, and
darkness flooded the place, reaching for me, trying to soak me in its slimy
energy. More blood stood in puddles where the floor and furniture had absorbed
all they could. What was left of the body was lying on the bed in another pool
of blood, and that increased my anger. It was hard to tell, but I thought it
had been a young woman. She didn’t look much more than twenty, but it was hard
to tell with her face distorted by her screams.

The fact that the
body was in pieces made it more difficult to tell for sure the victim’s gender
or age, but her head had fallen back when her throat was torn out, and even
though the killer had eventually severed it from the body, the head, still
seemed to be leaning back, screaming. Somehow, the killer affixed the head to
the headboard.Her torso was lying in
the center of the bed.I couldn’t really
tell what color the spread had been.It
was all dark red now.Her stomach was ripped
open, intestines, and internal organs spilling from it like so much spaghetti.

It was almost a warped parody of the human form.The heart had been extracted from the torso
and placed on top of it. The heart and torso, lying on the bed in the center of
the room, looked more like a gruesome centerpiece than something that had
recently been part of a human being. The arms and legs were almost shredded,
but you didn’t notice at first because they were separated from the rest of the
body.At first it looked like the victim
had been pulled apart because of the way all the pieces were separated.Body parts lay on the bed, on the dresser, in
the corners of the room, and under the window.As I focused on the heart, a pattern began to force its way through my
appalled senses and into my consciousness. The body hadn’t just been pulled
apart.There was method in this
destruction.